


Bewitching and Bewitched

by Regency



Series: A Merry Little Christmas [4]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Edward is THE WORST, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Falling In Love, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Magic as a metaphor for love basically, protective serena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: Berena Advent 2019, Day 9: MagicAU. Serena Campbell has a long, storied history as a witch. Marriage to Edward taught her magic was a gift that could not be shared. In time, Bernie teaches her something entirely different.
Relationships: Serena Campbell & Edward Campbell, Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Series: A Merry Little Christmas [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1213035
Comments: 24
Kudos: 79
Collections: Berena Advent 2019





	Bewitching and Bewitched

**Author's Note:**

> Berena Advent 2019, Day 9: Magic
> 
> I've been planing to finish this for ages and I decided today was the day. Since it isn't strictly Christmas-related and it's pretty sizable, I decided to post it separately from my other Advent fic. I have some trepidation about that decision, esp. without engaging two brilliant people I know as betas, but life is short, might as well go for it! All mistakes, typos, tense confusion and all around mess is my fault. Don't write 8k in one day, folks!

The day Bernie Wolfe shook Serena Campbell’s hand in the car park of Holby City Hospital, Serena was startled to feel a spark. For an instant, she was entirely aware of the woman in front of her. From her tousled head and scarred chest to her boot-shod feet, she knew her. The Fates that guided Serena’s life decreed, Bernie Wolfe was going to be important. Serena shouldn’t let go.

Serena had been here before when younger, caught in the undertow of infatuation and intrigue that left her mired in the worse of for better or worse. She had vowed, then, never again.

Yet staring into Bernie’s dark eyes and tracking the spread of her smile with rapt attention, Serena yielded to her fate.

Evidently, there was a second time for everything.

She hadn’t the first idea how this, whatever it was, would go. But she was compelled to admit, under a layer of trepidation rooted a mile-deep, she was dying to find out.

* * *

Adrienne McKinnie in her prime was the very model of modern magical matriarch. Powerful, judgmental, proud, and meddling. She was meddling embodied and Serena was her favorite target. She had an opinion on everything involving Serena. Serena’s clothes, Serena’s hair, Serena’s friends. Her studies, her dreams, her chosen lovers. There was a Right way to do things and with whom to do them and that was her way and who she chose, and she wouldn’t stop till Serena knew it. Serena knew it, Serena heard it, and Serena _fought_ it. But most painfully, to the marrow of her bones, Serena knew that Mother Knows Best. Serena knew almost nothing else until she went to university to study medicine. Finding out The Way Adrienne Would _Not_ Do Things was something of a relief for her. The world was not Adrienne McKinnie’s to control. Serena wanted to live in the world.

Serena fled all the way to the States to find her own path and in so doing she thought she’d left magic behind her. She was at peace with that decision. The world of mortals was grand and full of a magic entirely mundane. She thrived in it.

For a while.

But, you see, magic isn’t really something you leave. It sings in the blood and it sang in hers in a true fashion. When she found herself pregnant and married it became impossible to ignore. Like a screaming lullaby and a siren song, it drew her back home. So she and an unknowing Edward and the littlest Campbell-to-be came home to the McKinnie Coven and to Adrienne Who Apparently Knew Best, and to Serena’s magical maiden aunts—and _magic_. Edward didn’t know a thing and that’s how Serena would have left it, had she her druthers.

But Magic had a mind of its own, and Serena was not, despite what her maiden aunts used to say, very lucky at all.

*

Bernie Wolfe was legendary figure well before she entered Holby City Hospital on a trolley with a broken heart and a fractured spine.

Her work was unparalleled, her courage never once unremarked. Serena liked her before she met her. A woman of courage and distinction, somehow carving her mark on the medical world without fear of reprisal. That was a woman Serena could respect. That was a woman Serena would be pleased to emulate. If only she didn’t have to hear about her so much once she arrived.

Serena was as given to a bruised and jealous ego as anyone. Despite her numerous accomplishments, no one that she had heard of had spoken of her as others spoke of Bernie. It was galling and humbling to think no one ever would.

Then again, perhaps it was something Bernie cultivated. No one could be a walking legend without the airs to match. Serena was the daughter of a legend, a myth of a woman. She found it hard to trust them. Legends and myths, they weren’t like other people, like mere mortals or a simple witch, and they knew that. They used that.

Serena had been used enough to remain awestruck from a safe distance and cautious in proximity. Bernie might be a figure from dreams in theater and on paper, but Serena was determined that Bernie would not be her exception. Until the day they met, and Bernie tossed Serena’s preconceived notions in the bin.

Serena relied less on her magic these days. The mundane world was plenty extraordinary for her and she often harbored a niggling worry her power was growing finite. Perhaps it was loss and pain that had run dry the well of strength she’d drawn from all her life. Perhaps her magic had simply grown fickle and retreated deep when her mother had passed, the family magic following its matriarch when Serena refused to assume the role. Whatever the cause, she had come to save what magic she could for when it was truly needed, when there were no other choices and her hands alone would not suffice. But sometimes…sometimes even desperation didn’t work.

Today, for instance, the bit of oomph she’d pushed to fuel the engine of her aging car dissipated, carried off on the wings of an unaccounted-for breeze.

Serena stood outside the Wyvern entrance of Holby City Hospital and tried to keep her considerable temper in check as she wheedled a skilled mechanic to do what her once-considerable magic refused.

“I don’t think you understand. I need my car to work.”

The mechanic she was speaking to was sympathetic—to a point. “I’m sorry, Ms. Campbell. We can’t get to you for at least a couple of hours.”

“I don’t have a couple of hours. There has to be something you can do now.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t.” An insistent beeping filled the line. The mechanic had another call. “I’ll be in touch when someone can help you.”

“What? No, that isn’t good enough.”

He hung up.

“You have to be kidding me!”

Elinor was acting in a play at university today. A very important play that in all honesty Serena thought would be a poor effort but that she had promised not to miss.

She touched the bonnet of her car and reached into the miscellaneous spark plugs and bolts. _Work._ Magic was finicky and sometimes terribly simple. _Work!_ When she was young, she had constructed her spells in ornate Latin with diagrams and herbal offerings to whatever deity she needed. The years had done damage to her practice. Her altar had sat empty and untouched for years. She felt her neglect in the mechanical sputter beneath her hand.

Not since she was a girl had she needed more intention and focus than a single word to bring her power to bear.

_Work!_

Her car fell silent. It would not start.

She reached out for the whispers that once told her what was coming. The Fates, her mother had called them. They were conspicuously silent. No matter, she knew what was ahead. Her car wouldn’t start. She would be missing Elinor’s play, and like the feuding parents who raised her Elinor would not be forgiving. Serena cursed and flopped back against the open bonnet. Didn’t that beat all?

“Engine been growling or whining?”

There was a faint whisper behind Serena, and she turned to catch it, and in doing so saw the woman who’d spoken to her. The Fates hadn’t been speaking to her, as she suspected. They’d been pointing.

Blonde and stacked, overdressed for the weather and seeming to regret offering her assistance as soon as she spoke, was a woman Serena knew though they’d never met. Her reputation preceded her, doing her no justice in the offing. Nobody had mentioned the fine mind had fine eyes to match it.

To her credit, Bernie Wolfe was nothing like her legend and Serena liked her at once. She had little tolerance for anyone whose ego was as big as their sports car and Bernie’s coupe was a pretty little number in the car park. Not unlike its driver.

Following a round of flirtatious banter Serena was distinctly proud for the raspy laughter it elicited from the other woman, Bernie fixed her car with her bare hands. She filled Serena’s ears with a surfeit of technical jargon that Serena made little attempt to comprehend. Certain tasks held little meaning to her. Magic was intention and Serena had will enough for almost anything, until today. 

Bernie Wolfe was capable and humble, with a sense of humor as dry as Serena’s was saucy. She was built strong, muscles contracting under snug sleeves and jeans as she leaned into the guts of Serena’s car to burrow deep. Serena watched her work, offering any information Bernie asked for or that Serena thought she might need.

When Bernie tripped, coming near to barking her head on the car frame, Serena wiggled her nose to soften the blow. Bernie raised her head, a strange look in her eye.

“Everything all right?” Serena asked her, the soul of innocence. She was no stranger to being looked at that way. Most people chose not to see what they couldn’t believe. Bernie pouted, thin lips protruding in a manner too endearing for a woman who must have been approaching Serena’s age.

“Fine,” she said and set back to work. Serena provided the idle chatter to allay Bernie’s pensiveness.

Bernie Wolfe was everything she was said to be and then some. Apropos of nothing, she also happened to be very attractive.

Witches were anything but heteronormative, as Serena had learned at an early age. She hadn’t, erm, dabbled so much in pursuing women herself until university, uninterested as she was in what her mother thought about a witch who favored a wife over a husband. She’d never had a need to find out. Her mother perished before Bernie Wolfe ambled into her life.

Some treacherous voice in her head—not, for once, The Fates—told her it was for the best.

Bernie was beautiful and larger life. She had travelled the world and had not found an inch of soil she was unprepared to call home. She was also hiding something. Her eyes were shuttered dark with what she could not say that seemed to have taken up root on the tip of her tongue. Her voice was rough with what raged in her chest and scraped her throat raw to escape.

Bernie was hiding in plain sight, but Serena saw her. She couldn’t look away from her.

She didn’t even want to.

Serena worried, rather fatalistically as the Fates fell silent and events crystallized around them, how Bernie Wolfe might transform Holby City Hospital, and her.

* * *

Serena Campbell (nee McKinnie) was an exceptionally good witch, almost as a good as she was a surgeon. She was scholarly as any warlock worth his salt and airs. She was careful as any guardian of a coven’s legacy should be. Not because Serena was easily frightened—Adrienne had broken her of that at an early age—but because Serena was very, very powerful, and, yes, she knew.

Adrienne had told her long ago that carrying a witchling would make her stronger as she was possessed of magic enough for at least two. Serena had demurred, unsure for much of her youth if the family way was the way for her. Edward had changed some of that for her, and Elinor changed the rest.

When Serena was four months pregnant, her hormones began to surge and so, to her misfortune, did her magic. The same hormones that rendered husband irresistible made her prone to fits of anger that sent pots on the stove boiling over and the radiator hissing when Edward spent his paycheck on horse races instead of putting it aside for the baby. The hubcaps on the car flew off when she and Edward rowed over his late nights and late shifts that shouldn’t be _so_ late. Her hair began spontaneously changing color when emotions ran high. Consequently, it was always turning colors, oftentimes a jaundiced yellow or furious red. Thankfully, a love of hats ran in the family. She blamed the fur hat on pregnancy making her run colder than normal. (She genuinely liked the hat. It stuck around, though in the end, her husband didn’t.) She blamed hormones for her moods. (It was Edward’s fault and hers for not choosing better. She said nothing when her mother blamed him too.)

Edward discovered Serena’s magic when Elinor was a toddler.

Since she could smile, Elinor had been doing parlor tricks that would have made any witching mother beam with pride. Spinning the mobile above her pram. Reheating her cold expressed milk. Relocating herself to Serena’s arms when she was fussy or afraid to be alone. Serena had tried to teach her the difference between the time for tricks and the time for silence, but Elinor was small and spoiled and loved; she did as she would. Serena was too lenient about it, she knew, and it showed in Elinor’s flagrance now.

“Look, daddy,” Elinor said in a voice she would not speak with for months yet, “I can make them dance.”

Elinor was making her dolls dance about her nursery and Serena had been crowing with delight. Her daughter was a witch. Pride was not a strong enough word for everything Serena felt. For all that she ran from her heritage, she adored it and so wanted to share it with Elinor, the only daughter she would have. She knew, as she knew when snow would fall before it did, that she would not have another.

Serena was showing Elinor how to make her prancing dolls sing without aid of strings or batteries when Edward walked in the door. In the months she had spent watching her daughter grow while Edward worked, Serena had somehow forgotten this secret was hers and Elinor’s. He had been in the dark, but that day forward, he would be in the dark no more.

Despite his gaping maw and bulging eyes, she decided she was going to tell Edward the truth of who and _what_ she was. She’d never meant to, never really meant to go back to magic due to her mother’s overbearing interference, but now that Ellie had shown off it seemed better to tell her husband lest he think he’d lost his mind. Serena could tell a lie, blame what he saw on the tricks of an overtired mind, but Serena was not a good liar. She’d never wanted to be.

Serena took Edward’s hand and guided him to sit in the glider beside Elinor’s crib.

“I think there’s something you need to know. I hope you believe me.”

* * *

Serena took Bernie into her life and confidence with uncommon ease. For all that self-preservation dictated she stand alone, she’d never been terribly good at it. Serena loved people, the lonelier they were, the stronger her instinct to take them in. Bernie might be among the loneliest people Serena had met, determined as the woman was to behave otherwise, and Serena couldn’t abide that.

When the days grew long, Serena imbued Bernie with an ounce of her own strength to keep her standing tall. When the fights with her children grew vicious and Bernie believed all hope was lost, Serena sent her off to the roof to refuel and recharge. Nature raised the spirits and strengthened the downtrodden heart. The wind braced as surely as it carted away. Nature could give Bernie what Serena couldn’t, so Serena gave Bernie nature. It was how she loved.

Bernie became a beacon for Serena, a point of light in lonely darkness she hadn’t realized she was standing in. She was Serena’s friend, yes, but she was also proof the Serena was more than a surgeon, more than a pair of life-saving hands. Bernie had become proof that Serena was alive. That wasn’t a gift easily forgotten.

In the months since Bernie had arrived, Serena came to know Bernie by her person and her possessions, and her car was no exception. Serena knew Bernie’s car by sight and now it acted as a signal to tell her what kind of day she could expect. If Bernie was present and on-shift, it couldn’t be all bad. She might have become just a bit fond just a bit quickly, for her sins. She regretted nothing.

Once, Serena arrived to find the rear of Bernie’s car badly caved in, clearly the result of an RTC. Her heart sunk and only the fact that the front end of the car had suffered no damage kept her from panicking. Bernie had become essential. Her friend. Her confidant. Her partner in mischief and medicine. Her secret keeper, her human credential.

Eyeing her surroundings, Serena approached the car parked beside her own. It fairly hummed in the key of Bernie Wolfe. Her frustration, her tiredness, her eagerness, her anticipation. She laid a hand on its cool, damaged exterior and it sang as if in recognition of her. She wondered if her own car would sing were Bernie to touch it now.

Thinking of her friend inside, no doubt fretting over whatever had produced this damage, Serena gave the collapsed boot a feather light tap to focus her power and repaired the worst of the damage with a discreet snap.

 _There, good as new._ The car seemed to growl under her hands. It reminded her of Bernie whenever Serena would bully her to retire to the on-call room to snatch an hour’s sleep. Thankful that anyone cared and unsure how to gracefully accept it. _None of that now._

She gave the freshly repaired car a loving pat for its loyal service and hurried inside as if she was incurably late. Best not to linger after magic. Someone might see, someone might _notice_ Something.

Later that day, she found Bernie in the lift, exuding baffled bemusement over coffee and pastry.

“Something the matter?”

“I’m not sure.” Bernie followed her onto the ward, munching and not the least bothered by the envious stares she was attracting. There were rounds to do and paperwork to handle. They were going to have to flip a coin to see who earned what unenviable task.

Bernie propped up on the nurses’ station while Serena accessed the latest results for a patient. “I had a run-in with a light pole this morning on my way to work. The light pole was fine, but my back end was entirely caved in.” Serena shot her a teasing grin. Bernie only resisted snorting. Serena could never pass up a spot of innuendo about Bernie’s back end. “I couldn’t get my bag out of the boot of my car since the mechanism was jammed.” She furrowed her brow. “I was going to call my insurance company but when I went outside to take further stock of the damage a few minutes ago, it was pristine. Not a mark to show for the accident.”

Luckily for her, Serena was adept at hiding her nerves. She kept typing in the search bar though she’d already found what she was searching for. Bernie shan’t see her hands shake.

“Could be your insurance took care of it.” She should have been more careful, she knew that. Only she also knew how Bernie loved her car. Its purchase had been a bid to take back control of her life after the army.

 _Small things, Serena_ , she chided herself _. Only small magick._ But care was never small in the scheme of things. Love was no small act, whatever power was used to demonstrate it. She had known she would come to love Bernie, she simply hadn’t anticipated that love would come so soon.

Bernie squinted into the distance. “How could they have repaired it? I hadn’t reported the accident yet.” Speed demon that she was, Bernie was remarkably slow about admitting how many tickets she’d gotten for it, and how many fender benders she’d had. Her premiums were a nightmare, as Serena could attest from Bernie’s frequent complaints about them.

Serena shrugged, pretending at ignorance. “The universe works in mysterious way, doesn’t it?”

“I guess it must.”

Bernie stared at her for the longest time, long enough for Serena to reach for her necklace to busy her fingers. Finally, she broke her focus to take another munch of a pastry she was notably not sharing, the cad. Serena forgave her when she smiled, flaky crumbs clinging to her lips.

“I hope whoever that repair job was meant for doesn’t mind missing out.”

“I’m certain they’ll make do.” Serena rose, coaxing her reluctant co-lead back to their office. There was paperwork with Bernie Wolfe’s name on and now she wouldn’t be suggesting a coin toss. “Come along, Ms. Wolfe. I’m sure it will work out just fine.”

Knowing where she was being led, and to what fate, Bernie grudgingly followed her.

She still didn’t offer Serena any pastry, but she did hand over her coffee at Serena’s envious glance.

The charmer.

* * *

There was once a time when watching her young daughter learn to make seeds bud instantaneously into flowers reinvigorated Serena’s love for making things grow. They would spend hours in their garden every day reliving spring again and again, whatever the season. Serena had dug out her old spell books and even conferred with her mother to come up with a casual lesson plan for her growing daughter. She wanted Elinor to be a witch like she was, even if she herself had chosen to practice as a secular surgeon and not the witching kind. This was the world of McKinnie women, Elinor should be given the chance to love it all.

Yet the more Serena inculcated Elinor into magic and all its wonders, the tinkling bonds of its community, the more her instincts warred at bringing Edward along for the journey. Maybe it would save their marriage, she had thought originally, one less secret festering, fetid, between them. What she hadn’t counted on was what opposing traits that had made the attraction between herself and Edward so strong were the very traits that made their marriage impossible. Where Serena saw magic as a manifestation of her attachment to nature and her roots, a way to ensure her hands were that much steadier in theater, to ensure her strength didn’t flag when it oughtn’t, he saw a tool for advancement. Edward was easily Serena’s intellectual equal, she wouldn’t have fallen for him if he weren’t, but Edward had never seen a shortcut he wouldn’t take if it led him where he wanted to go a day sooner. Edward was overjoyed to having witches for a wife and daughter so long as he could use them. Their power was his gain, or so he believed.

Serena should have understood that well before she told him.

In truth, she hadn’t wanted to. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. She needed to believe she had chosen well, that the man she had elected to share her life with was everything she believed him to be.

When it came to love, Serena was colorblind, unwilling and unable to see where Edward acted in shades of self-serving grey instead of the full spectrum of devotion. The intersection of pride and love was irrefutably one place Serena was prone to erring. This would never change.

* * *

Bernie had lied to her. That fact sat in the pit of Serena’s gut like some impalement. Not a lie outright, not at first. A sin of omission about the terms of her divorce. A misdirection about the sadness she wore like a shroud. She had let Serena pour out her heart and had never done the same. Serena read shyness in her silence, a fear of reaching out born of introversion, and she had longed to befriend her anyway, enough to fill her silence with a tale of her own devising. She made Bernie something she wasn’t, as she had reformed Edward into a partner worth fighting for in her own mind. As then, she had no one but herself to blame for the fallout.

Bernie didn’t owe Serena her life story. Serena had only hoped Bernie might care to share it. She should have known better. Serena hated how she never knew better.

Bernie Wolfe was a legend. Bernie Wolfe was a gifted surgeon. Bernie Wolfe was a liar. She was also Serena’s friend. Bernie lied to her, lied to the police, for her son, a young man promising to be as exceptional as Bernie someday. She did what any mother would do, what Serena would do were Elinor more prone to minor offenses than expensive ones. As a mother, she understood. As a witch who had come out on the losing end of perilous lies, she worried. Because Bernie could lie to her and Serena would let her. Serena would forgive her.

She knew before her anger fully formed on the ward, in the moment of Bernie’s confession that she would forgive her. She would forgive Bernie her lies, her secrets, her omissions. She would forgive her anything just to keep her. Because Bernie was hers and her hold on Serena ran fathoms deep.

Bernie kept secrets. Bernie was brilliant. Bernie was her friend, she hoped.

Serena kept secrets. Serena was exceptional. Serena was her friend, at least.

She forgave Bernie the indefensible, easily enough, but she didn’t forget.

Anything that had happened once could surely happen again.

Serena could never allow that.

* * *

Back then, when Edward and Serena fought, they didn’t fight because they made each other miserable, though that would invariably come. They didn’t even fight because they weren’t in love. That was the last thing to be lost. They fought because they lived at cross-purposes, Serena in search of fulfillment and Edward in search of glory. They each thought the other might be the key when all along, what they were seeking were entirely different doors.

What Edward wanted more than he wanted Serena’s peace of mind and Elinor’s safety was for Serena to alter his fate. Not in so many words, as he hadn’t the vocabulary to understand what he was asking, but that was what he wanted. He cajoled Serena to use her magical influence to get him longer, more lucrative locum contracts, to get him raises, to get him hired. To sober him up. To make time where there is no more. To fix herself up (“just a nip and a tuck, love”) after the baby. To transport them places instead of driving. Edward treated magic like a fix-all instead of a transaction with the earth itself. Serena was willing to do _some_ things if they were in her power, but she could and would not do even most of the things he asked. They weren’t necessary and, in some cases, weren’t possible. Serena was a witch, not a god, and it pained her to see Edward was incapable of making the distinction.

An enormous row ensued at her first resolute refusal, so rife in nastiness it put all their previous arguments to shame. Eventually, it grew so heated Edward stormed out and refused to return for several nights. Refused to answer her calls, her countless pages at the hospital. Serena had to work and Elinor needed to be minded. She did what was necessary without him, what she had grown accustomed to in his myriad strops. She made do.

Serena fumed for days on end, hurt because she felt like little more than a tool for Edward to wield in his own interest, no more important than his accountant, there to fix his mistakes when he couldn’t be arsed. His absence grew so chilling, beginning to feel so unspeakably final, she willingly summoned her mother to her home to ask her advice. Because her mother had lived an age, though she didn’t look a day over fifty, and she knew from the depths of love.

Adrienne had appeared in a cloak and pearls, as befitting a matriarch. Her blue eyes flashed around the house, seeing where Serena had let the upkeep go to chase Elinor, to keep food on the table, for one more hour of sleep. Though she didn’t sneer, it was as near thing.

“What do you expect me to do?”

“I don’t know, Mother. Some advice would be welcome.” Serena was run to ground and despite herself, she missed her husband. Despite herself, she wanted this all to work.

“You’ve never wanted my advice.” All of Adrienne’s advice had the air of great wisdom handed down to a fawning disciple, which her daughter was decidedly not. Serena bristled. Her mother had never ceased to look at her and see a child of three. Serena was no child. She fought to keep her feelings from her voice, aware of how easily her mother could be offended.

“I am asking now.”

Adrienne was pragmatic and merciless in her pragmatism. Serena knew what Adrienne would say before her lips formed the words.

“You must make him forget.”

“Mother-“

“Wipe his memory, Serena. It’s the only way.”

Serena was aghast. She’d never do a thing like that to her own partner. Her mother must have been out of her mind to suggest it.

“I can’t. I won’t. How could you suggest such a thing? It goes against everything we believe in.”

Adrienne was emphatic. “What we believe in is the protection of this coven and our family. We do what we must.”

“What we must?” Serena quaked, furious, appalled even more. “Did you do that to Dad? In all your years together, he never opposed you, no matter how wrong you were. Is that why?”

“Your father fell in line because he was loyal and I am never wrong,” Adrienne remarked.

Serena scoffed, crossed her arms. “You’re wrong now.”

George McKinnie would never have agreed with this, mortal man that he was.

“Your father is not the issue. He was the soul of goodness and devotion. If only you were more like him.”

Serena hissed as if struck. The barb was meant to hurt her, she knew that. She wasn’t strong enough to disregard it yet. It had lodged in her throat with all the other cutting remarks she’d endured as her mother’s daughter.

“If you refuse to listen to me, there’s nothing more to say.”

Serena directed her heated gaze to the right of her mother’s shoulder. This was a fool’s errand. Her mother hadn’t approved of Serena marrying Edward or having children with him in the first place, however she might dote on her granddaughter now. There was many a prominent warlock she would have preferred had Serena been of a mind to have a match made for her, but Serena had been determined to make her own way. To say she now found herself balancing on the edge of a precipice would be kind. _My choice._

“For Elinor’s sake, Serena, choose well. For once.”

Suffice it to say, when Adrienne snapped away in a whirlwind of vibrant smoke, mother and daughter were not on speaking terms

When Edward finally saw fit to make his way home, he looked as miserable as Serena felt. Didn’t seem to have slept. Had hardly showered. He all but begged Serena to forgive him and take him back, to let him come home. Serena being Serena, all heart, and feeling guilty for secretly taking her mother’s unforgivable advice under advisement, did as he asked.

A decision she didn’t regret, up until the instant she realized _why_ Edward was so poorly. Edward had been on a week-long bender since their fight, working all day and drinking all night.

“What have you done?”

Edward regarded her in characteristic silence, sussing her out, scoping an angle to play that might lead to victory.

“Stop staring at me like I’m mad. What have you done?”

He responded to her outrage with outrage. “What makes you think I’ve done anything, Serena? Why are you picking a fight _now_?” As if the fight weren’t an inevitable result of what’s behind them and what’s ahead. He couldn’t hear the whispers Serena could hear, or see the Fates plucking silvered strands of causality in her mind’s eye. _His Fate is written. If not diverted, so is yours._ He had no idea what he had done. Nor did she, really, not yet.

“I will only ask you once more. What. Have. You. Done?”

He wiped his mouth. She noted the smear of pink at the corner. She wasn’t wearing lipstick. She hadn’t kissed him. _Another lie and deception._ Another strike against him.

“I made…” He cleared his throat and looked away from her. Her heart sank. “Things happened, in theater. Things went wrong.”

Serena sat down. She knew she would need to sit down to hear this. This would change them forevermore.

“What things?”

“The nurse passed me the wrong drugs.” Someone else was to blame, once again, right on schedule. Classic Edward.

“Did you check?”

“Bloody hell, Serena, of course-“

“Don’t lie to me! You cannot lie to me. Not now. Did you check?” It was his responsibility. His attention was the patient’s final line of defense.

He rubbed a frustrated hand over his balding scalp. “Yes, I’m sure I did.”

 _He lies_. Serena covered her eyes to keep from seeing his face. The Fates had spoken once again and not in his favor. Edward feared nothing so much as censure. He did not fear to lie.

“How many mistakes?” He shook his head and began to pace around the room. He went to Ellie’s pictures and to their wedding photo. He went to their licenses in pride of place on the wall. He went to all he—they stood to lose. But he did not answer her. “Don’t make me ask again.”

“Three or four,” he muttered like a schoolboy caught out. A schoolboy culpable in medical negligence at the very least.

“Three or four injuries or three or four fatalities? You’re never coy, there’s no need to play at it for me.”

He twisted his neck to hear it pop. She winced. “One’s dead. Three in serious to critical condition.”

“What were you doing?”

“I made mistakes.”

“I heard you the first time. How did you make them?”

“That isn’t the point. The point is, I need them fixed! You can do that. I know you can. You can do anything.”

He dropped to one knee in front of her. “Come on, all you have to do is snap your fingers and it’ll be right again.”

“I cannot make _you_ right, no matter how many times I snap my fingers.” Serena had checked. A person’s fundamental nature could not be altered, only influenced. If begun, it must go on, or all would be for naught. To change Edward for the better would mean to never stop changing him. He would be a toy soldier with her for the winding key.

“Don’t make this difficult, ‘Rena.”.

“Don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”

“Fix this for me and I’ll never take another drink.” She refused to budge. “Hell, I’ll even go to those blasted AA meetings you’re always going on about.” Edward suffered many a problem with drink. Serena had fallen toward dependency herself some days till her mother pulled her back. ‘No need to throw a good soul after a foul one,’ she’d said. Serena hadn’t had a drop of wine in months.

“I can’t do what you’re asking.”

He’d gone into theater three sheets to the wind and no fewer than three patients had paid for it. He’d _killed_ someone and he wanted Serena to fix it.

“One spell.”

“This is _not_ one spell, Edward. This is a matrix of magic-work. This is a series of spells. I couldn’t undo one part without arousing suspicion. I would have to undo it all. It’d be tantamount to time travel.” The last she whispered out of habit. It was taboo even to speak of it lest a more mutable soul be tempted.

He clutched her knees in a claw-like grip. “Can you do that? Can you let me go back and, and…”

“Not drink? Take a holiday? Sleep it off?” They had done all those things together when young and off-duty. Because, she had thought, they were responsible medical professionals. They did not knowingly do harm. It was an ideal she had been sure they shared.

“Fix it? I only want to fix it.”

“No, what you want is to avoid being accountable for what you’ve done. I can’t fix that. Every action, magical or mundane, must have a consequence. I can’t counteract that, those are the rules, and I won’t.” She might have apologized were she sorry, but Serena had had enough.

He reared back.

“You want to see me ruined.”

“I want to see you _change_!” she roared back. She needn’t have something of the lioness in her to make him recoil. He retreated, cowed. “That’s what I want. I want you to deserve the family you claim to want and the career that once meant so much to you. All I see is a man careening downhill who seems to be enjoying the ride.”

“Screw you,” his hissed in her face, breath reeking of what she dared not think. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about me.”

“I’m finally seeing that.”

Had he listened to the tenets of the magic he so coveted, he might have understood what tied Serena’s hands outside morality. Magical systems the world over almost universally agreed that there were two things that were simply not done: no rewriting history and no raising the dead. Civilizations whose names were well lost to time had fallen for both causes; the consequences of being caught doing either could be severe. Serena could be burned at the stake by her own coven, at worst, and Adrienne wouldn’t be able to defend her. She could have her magic bound, _at best_. Serena couldn’t even pretend to consider it. The answer was _no_. A firm, irrefutable no, and Edward was angry about it. Viciously angry.

When he stormed out of the house that night, Serena wasn’t surprised. She was only surprised that he ever came back.

He returned to her, erratic and terrified, full of will, vim and vigor. Edward Campbell made himself heard.

Did she know he could lose his license? Did she know that he could be found liable? It could ruin their lives. What would become of Serena married to a murdering doctor? What would become of Elinor? He imposed the mother of all guilt trips to lay at her feet, and he did not let up. Not for hours, not for days. He drank and he guilt tripped her and he shouted to the point that Ellie began making her dolls sing to her in Gaelic to drown out the racket. But that was when the shouting stopped.

Serena was so relieved to be granted a moment’s peace she lacked the wherewithal to question what made Edward give up his quest to push his witch of a wife to do his bidding. He hadn’t realized, somehow, in years of marriage that Serena did exactly as she wished and nothing more. She was the descendant of witches who had and hadn’t burned; he hadn’t stood a chance.

But then, neither did Serena.

* * *

Years on, Serena considered the cups of coffee on her desk and Bernie’s opposite her own. Bernie had gone off for a smoke break twenty minutes ago and was likely to be at least another few minutes returning. She’d taken it hard losing a patient in theater this afternoon and was sure to be on the roof feverishly deconstructing her own performance to uncover what went wrong. Serena wanted to tell her she did nothing wrong, that Death was a fastidious, officious beast. Death was always on-schedule; not even Bernie Wolfe would make Them late. Serena had all the legends and lore and tomes of Olde at her disposal as proof. But Bernie couldn’t read those, and Serena couldn’t gift her that comfort. What she could give her was coffee and sweetness, firm friendship and a listening ear should she need it. Not every hurt need be solved by a spell. Compassion would do as well

When Bernie reappeared, her reservations stored under lock and key to brood over in her off-hours, she nodded a greeting at Serena. She often needed the quiet to put herself to rights again. Serena could give her that. However, when it seemed Bernie might overlook her gift, Serena applied a lip twitch to nudge her steaming paper cup toward her. The motion caught Bernie’s wide eyes.

Curious, Bernie picked up the coffee Serena left for her and gave it a cautious sip. Her posture eased to find it the perfect temperature, this side of steaming hot. She narrowed her eyes—such a suspicious soul, Bernie Wolfe; Serena would be more careful were she wise.

(Serena wasn’t anything approaching wise about Bernie.)

“How’d you know when I’d be back?” Bernie asked.

Serena gave the side of her nose a tap. “A magician never reveals her tricks.”

(She’d asked Fletch to shoot her a text when he heard Bernie making her way down from the roof. Technology really did cover a multitude of magicks.)

Although Serena Campbell was a witch of some renown, you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Yet Bernie laughed as if she’d never doubted it. Serena’s heart lightened. Bernie’s rare and ridiculous laugh had always done that. That’s what made it precious.

When Bernie’s laughter transformed into a curse and she contorted painfully in her seat, Serena’s pleasure fizzled to mist.

“Problem?”

“My back.” Bernie had struggled with recurring pain since the incident that saw her out of the army. Long surgeries only exacerbated the issue, not that Bernie would pass those up in this life. Bernie’s determination to push her body like she was twenty in body as she was in spirit was no help. _If she won’t help herself, I suppose it’s down to me._

“Let me have a look.”

Bernie balked. Serena didn’t take offense. It was her body Bernie was angry at. Her body, her injuries, ageing. Time Itself.

Serena called her name to interrupt her halfhearted tirade. “Bernie.”

“You’re busy,” Bernie replied. Serena was unmoved. She left her computer to idle. The paperwork would get done; this witch had a way with time.

“That’s never stopped you asking me to cover your admin.”

“Extenuating circumstances,” Bernie offered, guilty as a child. Though not so guilty that this would ever change, Serena knew instinctively.

“I’ll show you extenuating circumstances.” Serena dobbed her hands in disinfectant. “Let me look at you.”

Bernie acquiesced, docile, on seeing Serena’s refusal to relent. The blinds were closed and the door locked for the next while. Far be it for Bernie to let anybody else see her vulnerable. Serena was cognizant this made her one of a fine few to have the privilege.

Bernie shed her scrub top in lieu of the long-sleeve undershirt she favored to cover her scars. Serena noted the strain in her voice as she quipped, “There are more entertaining ways of getting me undressed, if that’s what you’re interested in.” Serena filed that away. She was only beginning to wonder in earnest if perhaps she might be.

“Now she tells me,” Serena remarked, droll and dry as desert sand. Bernie came over warm, heat crawling up the back of her fine neck. Serena filed that observation away too. “Come on, quit stalling.”

Bernie grudgingly complied, presenting her back for Serena’s examination. Serena made note of her scars. Decided she loved them. Like she loved the ones Sian had surgically removed and the ones Elinor couldn’t remember. She loved Bernie like her family already, what was a few scars?

“Your back’s a knot. What on earth did you do to get yourself in this state?

Bernie wiggled in her seat, a squirm on a dignified woman still a notable squirm of embarrassment. Serena patted her shoulder to keep her still. To say she wouldn’t judge her or think less of her, whatever the fact of the matter. She wouldn’t mind.

“I hurt it moving my mattress into my new flat.” It was more of a question.

“Alone?”

“Nobody stepped up to offer a hand.”

“Did you tell anyone you needed it?”

Shamefaced silence followed.

“It might have gotten past me.” Bernie was a secret on long legs with perfect skin. She kept herself. The con was that almost nobody noticed how little they knew about her besides what rumor had revealed. In her own way, she was a magician too. But all her spells left her worse off.

“Next time, _ask_!” Serena chided, unable to bear Bernie’s anxiety another minute.

Bernie sank in her seat. Her point made, Serena set to work. She applied mundane skill to easing Bernie’s aches and pains, and just a hint of Something More. Just a touch, little enough that anyone might manage it were they experienced enough in adjusting an aching body. Enough to be sure that Bernie’s relief would last. Serena had never liked to see her friend suffer. To her mind, Bernie has suffered plenty; she deserved nothing less than comfort & joy.

Thoughts like these had begun cropped up more and more often since they became friends. Daily now they were always together. They wouldn’t be silenced. Like a spell Serena knew by heart, she longed to ease Bernie’s strain, to soothe her weary heart.

Bernie breathed a sigh as the final knot between her shoulder blades came untied. Her shoulders slumped in abject relief.

“You could make a career of this. You have the magic touch.”

Serena warbled, unduly amused by the irony. “I’ve heard that before. Go back to physio and take care of these injuries. You rely on your body to do what you do best, and I need you, for all sorts of reasons, to be able to do it.”

Bernie cast her an impish look, her good humor back in effect. “Careful or I might start to think you like me.”

“I like you plenty, Bernie. That’s never been in question.”

Bernie’s impishness faded to something altogether softer that left Serena’s insides dancing and her palms sweating where she dropped them to her sides. “No, I suppose it hasn’t.”

* * *

The evening Edward shattered their marriage—and their love—beyond repair was one Serena wouldn’t soon forget. Serena’s heart and home broke like this:

On a night when it was Serena’s go for a late shift and Edward, still on indefinite suspension pending a full investigation of his conduct in theater, was home with Elinor, Serena returned to an empty house. It struck her as odd since Elinor didn’t much enjoy the dark. She liked the comfort of her nightlight and her bed as the hour grew late. Disagreeable on the matter as the little girl could be, she loved her bedtime for bubble bath playtime and the stories and the cuddling. She would be home if she could be. She should be home. So should her father.

Serena tried not to worry overmuch, tried to enjoy the empty house and disregard the echoes playing in it. It was a rather annoying life at times, being a witch, hearing all manner of supernatural being playing in the corners. All the nonsense creatures that lived in the shadows were telling her to find her little witchling, that something was afoot. However she ignored them, accustomed to how portents and omens fueled paranoid other-beings that went bump in the night, they wouldn’t won’t be silenced, growing ever louder as the night wore on ‘til Serena shoved on her ugly orthopedic shoes and scrubs and set out to find her family. She would show them everything was fine.

_Let everything be fine._

The Fates cackled and played a chord on someone’s thread. Serena shuddered at the sound—it sounded of Elinor crying for her—and ran.

The nonsense creatures led her to the hospital where Edward worked, where he shouldn’t be. They led her to the vacant theatre where surgery after surgery had gone wrong and then down to the morgue where his worst-off victim landed. Nobody stopped her. It was as if they didn’t see her.

Elinor cried and the Fates demurred. Serena ran, but faster.

When she arrived in the dank basement that held the morgue, she shivered. The cold was like nothing she’d ever known, and she’d visited her share of morgues. The first thing she heard when she stepped out of the lift was Elinor screaming blue murder. Her daughter had always had a set of lungs on her, from birth a banshee and a diva, both.

Serena charged down the eerie, blue-lit corridor. She found morgue attendants round the bend, frozen in place, staring into the nothing. The farther she went, the colder she grew. Her fingers were turning blue and skin paler still. She slammed through the swinging doors and stumbled to a halt.

The morgue was arctic. The air was unnaturally still. The clock on the wall wasn’t ticking. The hands on Serena’s watch had ceased move. Time was not moving, but Elinor was screaming. So was Edward.

“Just fix it, Ellie sweetie. Fix it for daddy. You can do that, can’t you?”

Their daughter only shrieked and babbled, her precocious vocabulary vanished under sheer animal terror. “Mama, mama. I want mama!”

Elinor was three if she was a day. She had made apples grow from seeds. She had nursed injured birds to full health and set them free. She had kissed Serena’s bruised knee and made her whole again, all from love. Ellie didn’t know what dead was, but she knew the living and this, whatever this was, wasn’t alive. 

A body lay on the slab, discolored and chill and bloated. Edward suspended her above it to let her see.

Elinor screamed, louder and louder. So loud the walls shook. So loud Serena feared her voice might never recover. Her baby might never speak again.

“What are you doing?” Serena cried. She magically shoved him backward from across the room, hard enough to get Elinor away from the body but not so hard he would drop her.

“I’m fixing it! Let me fix this, Serena. Elinor can do it.” He cooed to their daughter who wriggled in his arms, trying to get free. “Come on, Ellie, love, do this for daddy.”

“Mama! Mama! Mama!”

Serena reached for her daughter. Edward yanked her back. “You don’t understand, Serena. I need her.”

Serena held tight to the reins of her rage. An angry McKinnie was a dangerous one. She couldn’t let Elinor be hurt. But she could hurt Edward. She would hurt him if he didn’t comply.

“She’s a child, Edward. Let our baby go.” She reached for Ellie who reached for her, plaintively calling for her.

“I need her.” He shook Elinor, just a little, he would say, but enough to see the toddler wailing, as if being terrified would make her work. As if she were a malfunctioning toy. He wanted her to make this right, to make the dead live. He wanted Elinor to do what Serena would not, he wanted Ellie to be his all-purpose tool, his fix-it girl. She was just a baby, she didn’t know how. So she had done what she could, she made everything stop.

All of this was Edward. The moment twisting under their hands. The silent Fates. Serena’s rage. Elinor’s shrieking cries. The patient he killed. The life he stole. The innocence he was willfully flushing down the drain for his own gain.

Serena hadn’t transported herself anyplace in years, but the spell came very easily when called. She was here, near the heavy, swinging doors, she wanted to be _there._ She popped into the heart of the morgue, quick as a gasp, snatched her daughter—her daughter, her blood, _hers—_ out of his arms, and popped away. Elinor wailed and clung, babbling, wretched and screaming. Scratching. Begging. _Mad._

Serena was helpless to stop the pain, so she did the only thing she could. She went to her mother.

Without the aid of a witch, time poured into the morgue where Edward stood to fill the void, quick and nauseating, like a sledgehammer to the brain stem. Edward’s head rushed with the weight of minutes dammed up behind his daughter’s hands. He passed out on the floor, beside the body he’d defiled. That was where the hospital authorities found him.

Serena took Elinor to Adrienne, begged her to make her little girl forget before madness or something worse took root, before the light went out forever in Elinor’s hazel eyes.

Adrienne cradled her granddaughter in her arms and kissed her curling auburn hair. “Forget, little one. Tonight is no more.”

Elinor forgot.

Her daughter in safe hands, Serena reappeared at the hospital, honing in on Edward’s location to find him outside, having being ejected for trespassing and barred from entering pending even further investigation.

Fury danced on her skin like white hot fire. She could burn the skin from his body. She might. Rage shot from her fingers in sparks. She dared not keep her hands in her pockets for fear of burning herself alive when she’d rather burn him.

She circled him on the pavement and pointed toward her idling vehicle. “Get in the car.”

“Serena-“

“Don’t speak!” She held back a storm by sheer force of will. Still, rain fell and soaked them through. It turned to crystals on Serena’s skin. For all that she smoldered, Serena was frozen to the core. All she felt was cold anger. There was no telling if he continued speaking what she might do. “Do not speak to me. Get in the car or I will _put_ you in the car in pieces!”

The ground shook with thunder at her voice.

A tree cracked in two.

Edward got in the car.

He tried talking to her, tried to explain. She didn’t want to hear any of it. She had made excuses for all his human foibles. She had made excuses for his mortality, his ambition, his selfishness. All those things were acceptable so long as they hurt only her. But now they’ve hurt Elinor. Serena could never abide a threat to her daughter. Not because Elinor was full of magic and light and goodness. Not because Elinor was the heir her mother dreamed about. Because Elinor was innocent and Edward didn’t care. Serena had found her Rubicon.

“Edward.”

He looked to her, eyes wide with fear, fully aware he had angered a woman like no other alive. He had a ready excuse, she knew the look. She had no interest in his excuses.

Before he spoke a word, Serena leaned over and kissed him. Thinking, somehow, he had engaged her better angels to find himself forgiven, he tried to kiss her back. While his lips kissed hers, she reached into his mind and plucked out all memory of her magic and Elinor’s. It was delicate as any surgery she’d ever performed and no small feat with his tongue writhing in her mouth, but she got the job done. By the end of their kiss, his memory of all she could was gone, never to be recalled. The magic of their marriage died with it.

She didn’t mourn.

When, months later, he said something was missing, she didn’t argue with him. When he left her in pursuit of someone younger, more exciting, more beautiful, she let him leave.

Elinor grew up fretful and unhappy and searching unendingly for something she could not name. Serena would give her unwanted tokens, unappreciated gifts, and all the time she could spare. But Serena would never give her those horrible memories back, nor her beautiful magic. She carried the burdens of both so her daughter never had to.

By the time Bernie showed up, Serena had made her peace with being the last witch of the McKinnie coven. Her aunts were gone and so was her mother. Her sister, too, though that knowledge was late in coming. Her nephew was a warlock to be proud of, and she was, but there would likely be no more witches.

After that night, Elinor never again believed in magic or fairy tales or fairy godmothers. Her daughter didn’t believe in much anymore, and certainly not in dolls dancing through the air of her childhood nursery. Those were just bedtime stories her mother used to tell. They must have been. Elinor grew to believe she made her own luck and weaved her own future. She could no longer remember how right she was.

In all the months it took for Bernie Wolfe to creep into Serena heart, there was never a moment when Serena considered telling Bernie she was a witch. Not when they shook hands and she felt a sunlight golden thrill zip from the top of her head out from the tips of her toes. Not when Bernie smiled at her with those puppy dog eyes and a warm breeze whipped through the car park smelling of cinnamon sweets. Not when their shoulders brushed in the lift and Serena thought her hair turned faintly blue. The blue of Bernie’s trauma unit scrubs. Everything Bernie made her feel aroused her magic, more than Edward ever did, but magic also brought out the worst in him and the thought that it might do the same to Bernie scared her beyond imagination. What wouldn’t she give up for Bernie if she only asked?

As it was, Serena did all manner small spells to keep Bernie happy. Made time turn a little faster when Marcus came on the ward for another locum stint from St. James’. Blew a hint of dragon’s breath over their coffee to keep it warm during long shifts. Teased the details of Bernie’s affair from members of the gossip mill until they grew bored and moved on to some other scandal. Passed a hand over Cameron’s scrambled head to ease his moderate concussion. Loosened the muscles in Bernie’s ailing back with more than just a deft touch whenever it pained her. Bernie could have so much of her, if she only knew.

Serena didn’t intend to let that happen, certainly not for a woman who had only recently become her friend, and who was quickly coming to mean everything. Serena learned from her mistakes.

* * *

Serena did not learn from her mistakes. Her first kiss with Bernie, and second, proved Serena remained the fool of a witch who had married Edward and forgiven him till his sins grew insurmountable.

Bernie was the fire and Serena was the touch paper. Each time Bernie touched her she burned, and each time she burned, Serena grew to love it more. Love like that had haunted many a McKinnie witch unto her grave. Love for her father had haunted her mother.

Bernie had besieged her with their first kiss on that theatre floor, but by then the damage was done. Serena already loved her. Her secrets. Her darkness. Her kindness. Her regret. Bernie lived inside her heart and nothing short of magic would cast her out.

When Bernie left her with a fateful kiss on her lips, Serena took to the peace garden to bury her sorrow. A witch’s tears were magic; from all of this, something good should grow.

A sapling sprung up where her mother was scattered. An apple tree. The little girl Elinor used to be would have been delighted. If only she recalled outside of awful dreams. If only her baby were a witch anymore. Her magic had soured and turned to fury in her chest. Angry was all Elinor remembered how to be, forever shouting for a mother whose rescue would come too slow.

Serena grieved again in that garden. For her mother, for Arthur, for Ellie and her own idiot heart. She should have known better.

She still didn’t.

* * *

Then like a certain prodigal witch Serena knew well, Bernie came back.

She came bearing cheap airport wine and brighter hair. She’d brushed it. Made herself presentable. Made herself over in the image of some stranger she thought Serena could love. Could forgive.

She hadn’t known that Serena would forgive her anything from the minute they said hello.

Although her reservations remained over time, Serena’s heart won out. Serena’s capacity for love could still surprise her; Bernie’s ability to be lovable certainly had.

For all Bernie carried shadows around with her, she brought light into Serena’s life. She had a magic entirely own. Her smile made Serena smile. Her laughter made Serena laugh, the louder the better. Her haplessness made Serena brave, and her encouragement made Serena braver. Serena had lost count of the shifts gone awry that had ended in triumph because Bernie was at her side. A simple touch, an arm around her back, a fast, firm linking of hands; that’s all it took to give Serena her second wind. Bernie touched her and her exhaustion receded just long enough to save another life. Bernie looked in her eyes, peered into them as an enchantress might into the eyes of one enchanted, and suddenly Serena had faith.

Bernie was Bernie and Serena was Serena, and together they were invincible. Untouchable. Unstoppable. They were magic.

Who else was a witch going to fall in love with?

* * *

The fourth time they kissed, there were no interruptions.

The door to Bernie apartment thudded shut behind them, blocking out the sounds of traffic, the question of tomorrow morning, of tomorrow period.

Their bags landed on the floor. Their coats followed.

Their lips collided as their bodies did. They bumped into the hall table when Serena’s tongue breached Bernie’s lips and Bernie drags her close, blindly seeking buttons to find skin. Serena plastered herself against Bernie’s front, teasing kisses from her mumbling lips till all her patience and dexterity abandoned her and she swept aside the collar of Bernie’s high-neck blouse to nip and nuzzle her shoulder and neck. She tasted as good as she had always looked.

“Do you want this?” Bernie’s eyes begged her to say yes _._

“Just tell me where to go.” _Tell me what to do._ There had never been another woman. There could never be now.

They tumbled into Bernie’s bedroom, a tangle of roving hands and tasting tongues. They parted to undress, lips lingering in reach.

“Let me?” Bernie asked, fingers itching to touch.

Serena dropped her hands from her half-opened blouse. She could strip them now in a word, but this was ever so much sweeter. Bernie ensorcelled by lust and not magic work. Bernie Serena’s as much as Serena had been Bernie’s from that first minute.

Bernie stripped Serena out her clothes, hands slow and steady. Her eyes darkened with each new patch of skin of unveiled. Her desire played out on her face, naked as Serena was becoming button by button.

“Sorry, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“I’ve been thinking about this for days.”

Serena kissed her before she could find something else to apologize about. No more excuses. No more delays. No more leaving it in theater.

She peeled Bernie out of her top. Kissed one freckled shoulder while tracing her ribcage on either side. Kissed the scar in the center of her chest. Pressed reverent kisses to each breast.

Bernie sighed her name.

She nibbled Bernie’s ear while working loose the hooks of her bra.

The jeans were harder to chuck but they managed. Her knickers were the work of a moment. Perhaps a flick of the wrist that wasn’t entirely needed.

Bernie, she found, was beautiful out of clothes as she’d ever been in them. Serena found it impossible to get close enough.

The first time they were both completely naked, skin to skin, was bliss. The second time was better. The third time…the fourth. If Serena loved Bernie before, she would revere her to Kingdom Come after this. Bernie was exquisite. Responsive, demanding, solicitous, and so very willing. Their bodies fit together in any configuration they could conceive of, and they must have tried them all.

Whether Bernie was beneath her or on top of her, draped over her back and inside of her, Bernie was precisely where she was meant to be, precisely where Serena needed her. Craved her. Like some lover Serena had conjured up from ashes and flowers and shards of sea glass, had dreamed about when she was young and she still dreamed of love.

The Fates were quiet. Serena’s demons and the nonsense things that followed her were still.

When Bernie slept splayed over her chest in a naked, sated heap, Serena was content at last. She had found what she was looking for.

They were always going to find each other, Serena decided, tracing soothing fingertips set alight over Bernie’s scars. Some things, impossible as it sounded, were meant to be.

* * *

Once Serena and Bernie finally, _finally_ came together, Serena’s magic blossomed. It _bloomed_ as surely as her garden in unseasonable weather. Like when she was carrying Elinor, her magic was erratic in those early days. Love made it erratic, unsteady as a heartbeat run wild. Sex was part of it. Good, satisfying, vigorous sex made her heart work, and her magical core sing. Bernie made her sing. Bernie made her hair turn colors and starlight tip from her fingertips when they lay tangled in bed. Her kisses had the power to make Serena float from time to time, far from an easy thing to explain away, though she did with evident success.

Now that Serena had Bernie, being on Cloud Nine was more than a feeling; it had become her everyday life. She loved it as much as she loved Bernie and she was loath to let it go.

The trouble was that Serena got quite comfortable having Bernie around. Perhaps too comfortable. She got in the habit of magicking _around_ Bernie, almost hiding her witchery in plain sight. When Bernie tracked mud in the house, she tapped the side of her nose to sweep up behind her. With a flick of a finger, she straightened her shoes when Bernie kicked them off in the entryway. A raised eyebrow prompted a discreet wind spell to produce that windswept look she favored on her big macho army medic, even on occasion when Bernie had tried brushing her hair.

“Okay, that’s the fifth time! Where’s all that bloody wind coming from, in our bedroom of all places?” Their bedroom because Bernie all but lived there. Because this was a good as done for them both. Because Bernie’s heart was not unimpregnable: Serena had got in.

Serena reclined on the bed with shrug and smirk and said, “Haven’t the foggiest, darling. It’s an old house, you know. Drafty as all get out.”

Bernie turned to her, wearing that hint of a smile Serena loved. “Drafty is, it? That’s how you’re going to play it?” Never mind the yards of space between them. Serena hadn’t moved an inch and Bernie knows it. Sometimes Serena thought Bernie knew all about her. She wished it were true; her knowing would make everything simpler.

Serena fluttered her lashes to distract from the wiggle of her nose and the almost noiseless creaking of the window pane. “The window’s not fully closed. Might want to check on that.”

Bernie looked where she pointed. “And it was the wind that lifted up my jumper just now?”

 _Busted!_ Serena pled total innocence. “A very naughty breeze.” Everything was just that bit naughtier when Serena got involved. Couldn’t be helped.

* * *

The longer Bernie cohabitated with Serena and Jason the more Bernie suspected there was plenty something she wasn’t being told. The house was scrupulously neat despite them all being too busy to clean. All the chores were done. The wine was forever breathing on the counter when needed. The flowers were in bloom for longer in their garden than anyplace else. The house was instantly warm the minute Bernie stepped inside despite it being empty all day. Bernie wasn’t complaining per se, but they do weigh on her. She didn’t care what the truth was, she only wanted to know it.

Even the nights she and Serena spend together seem impossibly long. Which certainly wasn’t a complaint, merely a happy observation. Just a curiosity.

Bernie had her secrets too. She questioned if it might not be time to share.

* * *

On days when Bernie and Serena worked separate shifts and Serena and Jason had the house to themselves, they let their magic out to play. The vacuum did its own hoovering, the feather duster did the dusting, and the wine poured itself. The tea brewed itself. The dishes scrubbed themselves. The figures in the pictures on the mantle dance and reveled as though alive. Serena drifted through the air to sweep cobwebs from the ceiling while Jason adjusted the topmost pictures of their magical ancestors on the remembrance wall. Neither of them minded living with a mundane, but it was nice, once in a while, to stop pretending to be anything approaching normal.

As the end of Bernie’s shift approached, things settled down. The pictures returned to slumber. The house cleaning supplies trundled back into the utility cupboard. The flowers in the back garden closed up for another few weeks. The music coming from nowhere and everywhere fell silent. The stove shut itself off and the smell of dinner wafted through the house. Jason’s feet landed on the ground as Bernie unlocked the front door. Serena met her with a kiss. Jason turned on a repeat of World’s Strongest Man, previously paused at the seven-minute mark.

Bernie and Serena drifted into the kitchen, trading murmured greetings between further greeting kisses. Serena might have begun floating again, just a centimeter or so, toes only barely brushing the lino. Bernie got tangled in her shins and they stumbled into the counter, lips locked. They parted and laugh. They were like teenager, never close as they yearned to be. Serena reached for a wineglass for Bernie and another for herself. Bernie stared to her right. Serena looked to her right. There, the wine bottle recorked itself and floated down to settle on the countertop. Apparently, it hadn’t got the memo that play time was over.

Serena swore silently. Her throat constricted. She paled in horror, trying not to let it show.

“Sorry, did that just float?” Bernie asked, blinking rapidly.

“No?”

Bernie shook her head, eyes trained on the cork. “Right, of course not. My eyes are just tired, aren’t they?”

Serena never wanted to lie to Bernie. She hated lying, had been lied to too often to fancy it as an option, but she didn’t know what else to do. The Fates had been quiet since they got together. Serena was on her own.

“I’m sure your eyes are tired.” It wasn’t a lie, more a misdirection. Still, Serena was sick with it.

Bernie peered at her through her overlong fringe. “You would tell me if they weren’t?”

“They’re your eyes. You should know best.” She couldn’t meet Bernie’s expectant look for long. _Don’t make me lie._

Bernie squinted at her, worried. “I love you, you know that? I’d love you no matter what.”

Serena smiled. She did know that. What she didn’t know was if she’d love anything Bernie asked her to do. “I know.“

“Okay.” Bernie kissed her and took her wine over to the stove. She drank it without hesitation. “What’s for dinner?”

Dinner was delicious and deliciously strained. Bernie clearly couldn’t forget what she’d seen, and Serena couldn’t forget that she saw it, that she could be so foolish as to become that complacent. Bernie wasn’t Edward, Bernie was better. Bernie could be told, couldn’t she? She can be told, Serena decided, firm and sure in her love for the other woman. Yet the words wouldn’t come when Serena called them. Dessert was served and coffee was had, and Serena could not make speak the words. _What if she can’t be trusted?_ The very thought burned like the insidious poison it was, and Serena hated Edward twice for filling her with doubt.

Jason was restless throughout the meal, sensing the undercurrents between his aunties despite not knowing the reason. He was accustomed to living with magic the way Serena had growing up. She had taken for granted how difficult it must be for him to lock it up in a box now that Bernie shared their home. Serena had made her own magic a secret and by doing so made his taboo. What before seemed like a workable arrangement, now smacked of unfairness. She’d done them all a disservice in service of a mistake only she remembered.

Tonight was Jason and Bernie’s turn to wash up after dinner and Serena found herself lingering, worried that Jason would let something slip or that Bernie would ask a question she shouldn’t. She didn’t know what she’d do in either event. Bernie was _not_ Edward. Serena wouldn’t reach into that beautiful mind to steal this knowledge back, fledgling as it is. It would kill their relationship and break her own heart. She’s anything but that brave or that selfless. She wasn’t anything approaching that selfish, either.

The tension persisted through the premiere of Mary Beard’s latest, when all three of them are gathered on the couch. The atmosphere grew so oppressive Jason began to rock as self-comfort and then to hum a sort of droning hymn. Something his mother used to sing, he’d told her. He was good enough to write down the lyrics for her once, another piece of Marjorie for Serena to have.

Serena foresaw what would happen before it did: A framed photo of his mother drifted toward his outstretched hand. She could stop it, put it back in place and distract Bernie with something else. Instead, she let it fly. What Jason needed was more important than a secret she shouldn’t be keeping anymore. She held herself taut as Bernie’s head swiveled to follow the photograph’s progress. There was no pretending it hadn’t happened. There was no pretending Bernie hadn’t seen. Her eyes weren’t as tired as all that. They couldn’t be as tired as Serena was of lying.

They all retired to bed shortly thereafter. None of them, perhaps not even Jason, had taken in the program. Though early Serena felt as though she’d been awake for days. She and Bernie awkwardly maneuvered around each other as they prepared to sleep. There were no games, no phantom touches on the backs of Bernie’s knees. No phantom kisses on her nape that Serena would not take the blame for despite being entirely responsible. They crawled into bed and rested a meter apart. There could be a world between them. There was a world between them. Serena never did get around to explaining magic to anybody else.

After what must have been an hour of sleepless stillness, Bernie reached across the expanse to find Serena’s hand under the covers. “II said I’d love you whatever, didn’t I?”

Serena grappled with her tempestuous emotions. Hated that she still remembers being relieved by Edward’s acquiescence and then horrified by his intentions. “This is a big ‘whatever.’”

“Too big?”

Their thumbs rubbed together. "You tell me.“

“I think we should look on the bright side.”

“The bright side of me being a lying witch?” It feels good to say it. No ambiguity in the truth.

Bernie moved closer in the dark. Her minty breath warmed Serena’s cheek. “Not the only liar.” A light flickered on from nowhere between them, nestled like a budding flame in the palm of Bernie’s hand. “And not the only witch.”

Serena bolted upright in bed. There was no match. No candle. No touch paper. Only Bernie and the light in her hand reflected in her eyes. “You, too?”

Bernie laughed seeing her bewilderment, husky and conspiratorial, and Serena’s heart was no longer quite so heavy. “Me, too.”

Suddenly all those moments where Bernie’s touch lit her up from the inside weren’t quite so mysterious. Love, at its origin, was just another form of magic, this one shared.

Serena called on earth and air and the sun, and she let it all _spark_ at the tip of her forefinger. When her yellow fire met Bernie’s blue flame, it sizzled and grew, expanding to encompass both their hands without burning either.

“See, not so bad,” Bernie said. There was a question hidden under her glee. Would Serena forgive her another deception?

“Not bad at all,” Serena agreed. There was nothing to forgive.

Her throat was tight. Not from fear. She doubted there was anything that could scare her right now.

“I told you, Serena. I love you no matter what.” Magic and all.

“I love you, too.” No question and no doubt. Not anymore.

Love and magic were no longer the curses they used to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://sententiousandbellicose.tumblr.com/post/189678496195/fic-bewitched-bewitching-berena)
> 
> Come talk to me about Berena on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose.


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